


A Gift at Christmas

by Badgermole



Series: Colors [4]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Autism, Christmas, Colors, Crayons, Gen, Gifts, Kid!Roman, dad!logan, dad!thomas, kid!virgil, nonverbal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 10:12:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17057861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badgermole/pseuds/Badgermole
Summary: Roman wants to get Virgil the perfect Christmas gift.Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!(Just read it, Nike Swoosh)





	A Gift at Christmas

Roman let out another exaggerated sigh.

A light amused chuckle came from the kitchen behind him. “What’s on your mind Roman?”

“I haven’t gotten Purple his gift yet!” Roman flailed his arms. “I’m a horrible best friend!”

Roman listened as the sink turned off and his father’s footsteps started toward him. Roman stared at the bare feet in front of his face.

“What’ve I told you about sitting like that?” Thomas pulled the upside-down Roman up and into a proper sitting position on the couch. Roman grumbled a reply and crossed his arms. Having all the blood rush into his head helped him think, and Virgil liked it when Roman’s face was tinted red.

“You’re not a bad friend.” Thomas sat down across from Roman resting lightly on the coffee table. “Purple is going to love whatever it is you get him.”

Roman shook his head and pouted. “It needs to be perfect! Purple’s not like everyone else. He deserves the perfect gift.”

Thomas stroked his chin. Getting gifts for the Sanders pair had always been difficult. Logan and Virgil seemed to live rather minimalistic lifestyles, though Patton seemed to be convincing Logan to have more things. Virgil though, he wasn’t going around telling people what he wanted.

“Okay. How about you make a list of what you know Purple likes and we’ll go from there?” Roman nodded excitedly and raced away to get the necessary list making supplies. Thomas stretched hearing his back pop, when had he gotten so old, and moved back into the kitchen to finish making the pair dinner.

 

“Roman, I’m sure Purple likes other things than just colors.” Thomas rubbed his forehead. They had just finished up dinner and Roman had been working hard on his ‘What Purple Likes” list.

Roman pushed the various glitter crayons away and threw his arms up. “I don’t know! This is so hard!”

“Come on, we’ll work on this together. I promise we’ll figure out a great- I mean, the perfect gift for him.” Thomas reached across the table and gently lowered his son’s arms.

“What does he like to do when you have playdates?” Thomas offered as he saw he son trying to compose himself.

“Uhm.” Roman swung his legs letting them bounce off his chair. “He likes to show me his crayons. Sometimes he rearranges them. Or we’ll play Knight and Prince and we try to slay the nasty Dragon Witch. She curses him sometimes.”

The two fell into a bit of a silence. Thomas was doing his best trying to explain to Roman about Virgil’s autism, especially when Virgil would get overwhelmed or had meltdowns. Still, Roman needed that more physical, albeit imaginary, adversary he could fight to help his friend.

“How about when you go to school together? He has fun then right?” Thomas asked as he added crayons and playing knight and prince to the list.

“He doesn’t like when it’s math time, even though he’s good at it.” Roman nodded to himself. “He likes art because he gets to use the finger paints and the crayons and the pencils. He doesn’t like to show what he draws though. Oh! He likes doing the projects in science. He’s very good at them, better than me.”

Thomas continued to jot down the important snip bits of Roman’s ramblings. His son was currently on a tangent about one science project when he ‘almost died.’

 

Roman was vibrating with a mixture of nerves and excitement. The Princes were waiting on the front stoop. Normally Roman would knock and walk right in with his dramatic entrance, but Thomas had them wait like proper guests. Roman glanced down at the small perfectly wrapped purple box in his hands.

“Don’t worry, you found the perfect gift for Purple.” Thomas gently patted his son’s back. He reached up and knocked another time.

The door opened, to the surprise of both of them, by Virgil. The normally purple hoodie clad boy was in a green and red striped long sleeve shirt. Virgil was intently staring at his purple socks.

“Hi Purp!” Roman accidentally shouted. Virgil flinched and slammed the door closed.

Roman and Thomas blinked at each other as Roman’s face heated up. He hadn’t meant to scare his friend. Thomas took a deep breath and slowly knocked on the door again. From the other side, a quiet knock responded. Thomas’s brow crinkled and rose slightly on his forehead. He hesitantly knocked yet again. Once again a knock responded. Taking a shot in the dark, Thomas reached up and opened the door.

Inside, Virgil had his shoulder’s up near his ears but his eyes were up near Roman’s knees. Roman smiled at the good sign and greeted his friend in a more appropriate volume. While Virgil didn’t respond verbally, his eyes did flick over to the left side of Roman’s chest. Roman reached out for Virgil to let him take his sleeve, but Virgil simply walked away from the door. He did whisper out “Red” before getting too far away so Roman knew he wasn’t upset with him.

 

Throughout dinner Roman couldn’t shake the feeling that Virgil was mad at him. Sure Virgil didn’t exactly come off as the warmest of people, but Roman knew enough to tell the difference between normal Virgil and upset Virgil. This was for sure not normal Virgil.

The second dinner was done, Virgil left the table and thumped up the stairs toward his room. Roman felt a heaviness in his chest. He’d ruined Virgil’s Christmas. A hand gently landed on his shoulder. The young prince looked up to see Patton giving him a small smile.

“Would you come help me clean up some of these dishes?” Patton said softly at the devastated look on Roman’s face.

Roman nodded and slid out of the seat. Shuffling his feet with his head down, he followed the older man out of the dining room. The pair worked in silence, Roman handing Patton some dishes while Patton washed them.

“What’s got you all down and glum, Ro?”

“Purple’s mad at me. I yelled and he slammed the door.” Roman whispered. “I ruined his Christmas.”

“Oh, no, Roman, I promise you didn’t ruin his Christmas. Purple’s not mad at you, I promise.” Patton crouched down to be eye-level with the now sniffling boy.

Roman shook his head. “I did. I ruined it.”

Patton reached out and wrapped his arms around Roman. “I’m going to tell you a secret, okay?” Roman sniffled again but nodded his head in Patton’s shoulder. “Purple worked really hard on his gift for you. He’s nervous.”

“I’m nervous for him to get his gift too.” Roman wrapped his little arms tighter around Patton.

“I know for sure both of you got each other great gifts.”

“For sure?”

“For sure.”

The pair stayed like that for some time, just hugging while Roman’s sniffles subsided. After a few minutes Logan gently knocked on the doorframe and said they were ready for gifts whenever they wanted.

Patton gently cleared Roman’s face of the few tears that had fallen. The teacher stood up and held his hand out to Roman. The small prince took a deep breath and shook his head. He could do this.

With his head high and chest puffed out, Roman marched into the living room. Virgil was sitting on the couch, squished into the corner, playing with his ear. His pointer finger went behind his ear and dragged the top part of his ear so it folded down before letting it snap back up. Roman smiled as tension started to leave his body. Virgil only did that when he was nervous. He wasn’t mad at Roman.

Thomas handed Roman the purple box as he passed and gave his son a double thumbs up. The trio of parents smiled and nodded encouragingly before moving to the kitchen to give the nervous boys some space.

Roman sat down on the cushion next to Virgil but kept his distance. Now that he was close, Roman could make out a small yellow box in Virgil’s hand. After a few seconds, Virgil scooted over next to Roman close enough that their shoulders were touching. Virgil let out a quite hum and nodded, not looking up from the box in his lap. Neither boy made any motion to exchange the gifts. All of Roman’s confidence flew out the window as his leg began to bounce. The shaking was jostling Virgil slightly but he just couldn’t stop it.

Roman nearly fell off the couch when he felt something poke his ear. Virgil’s hand was raised and cautiously folded Roman’s ear down and let it snap back up. Roman’s heart started to slow down and he let out a laugh.

“Yeah. I’m nervous too.” Roman turned the present around in his hands. “I wanted it to be perfect.”

Virgil hummed and grabbed the gift from Roman’s lap. Virgil ran his hands over the shiny purple paper and let his fingers get tangled in the twists and loops of the bow on top for a bit. Virgil handed the gift back to Roman and the other carefully undid all the tape. Virgil didn’t like the sound of the paper ripping, and the colors were too nice to destroy.

Roman put the undamaged paper on the table and Virgil took back the now unwrapped gift.

“It’s a twisty cube.” Roman said as Virgil fumbled with the plastic packaging. “But it looks like bits of atoms, cause you like science. And it’s got so many colors. It’s a puzzle too if you want. You twist it to get only one of each color on a side.”

Virgil had removed the puzzle from the packaging and was hesitantly turning it. There was a nice click when you turned a side into place. There were so many colors too! Red, and blue, and green, and purple, and even more! Virgil ran his fingers over the smooth round pieces with one hand while the other turned the puzzle.

Virgil let out a loud hum and swayed side to side so his shoulder kept bumping Roman’s. Roman smiled.

“You like it?” Roman asked with a big smile on his face.

Virgil hummed again and rapidly nodded. Roman let his friend sit entranced by the gift for a few minutes before he remembered Virgil had gotten something for him too.

“You got me something too right?” Roman asked. Virgil’s happy hums and movement stilled. He quickly dropped the small yellow rectangle into Roman’s lap before focusing on his new toy.

Roman smiled and looked at the box. It was one of Virgil’s little crayon boxes. Taped over the front though was Roman’s name in Virgil’s shaky handwriting. He could tell that each letter had been stuck on individually, probably to take the best looking letters from a couple different ‘Roman’ attempts.

Roman smiled. Virgil never shared his crayons, at least not like this. Roman felt special.

“Thank you for your crayons Purple.”

Virgil stopped playing with the cube and looked at the box of crayons. Virgil made an upset noise.

“Purp?” Roman asked hesitantly.

Virgil grabbed the box from Roman’s hands and carefully opened the top of the box. Virgil handed back the open box and hummed, his cube seemingly forgotten. Roman pulled out the first crayon from the box. Roman smiled as he read the label. Virgil hummed and rocked a few times back and forth as Roman made his way through the box.

 _Red_.

_Orange._

_Maroon._

_Atomic Tangerine._

_Neon Carrot._

Roman felt tears starting to well up. With all the red-orange crayons done, that left only three in the box. All the same purple color. Roman slowly pulled the three wax sticks out.

_Royal Purple._

Roman let a huge smile cover his face. Without thinking he wrapped his arms lightly around Virgil in a giant crushing hug. Virgil let out a surprised noise and froze, but didn’t make a move to pull away from his friend.

There was a quiet click and Roman faintly heard Thomas and Patton letting out a quiet ‘awwwww.’

“Merry Christmas.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: All the crayon colors can be found in crayola packs.


End file.
